by Judd Vowell
Jessica turned her face downward, hiding her eyes.
“C’mon, let’s sit down,” Anna said. They sat in the cushioned seats facing the field. “I know about family, Jessica. I know how hard it is to lose ‘em. I was a daughter and a sister and an aunt before the darkness. And now?” She paused for a few seconds. “Now they’re all gone. I tried to get to them, but by the time I did, they were dead. Victims to one of a million heinous crimes that took place in those first weeks. But let me say something else. Something I believe with my heart. I believe in destiny, in whatever form you need to wrap your head around it.” She reached over and put her hand beneath Jessica’s chin, lifting her face until she could see it again. “If your family is still alive, you’ll see them again someday. But you’ve got something special, kid. Something we need right now. You can inspire this whole camp, and you know it. And whether your family is alive or dead, you can still make them proud.”
Jessica didn’t say anything for a while, soaking in the significance of what Anna had said. Her tears had stopped flowing as Anna delivered her trumpet call. She pictured her mother and Henry at the farm, alive and well. She pictured her father in some other world far away, but still watching her. She had never missed them as much as she did sitting in that hollow stadium. But Anna had been right. There wasn’t anything she could do for them anymore, and if her mom and Henry were still alive, she would see them again when destiny allowed. She had to believe it, just as she was starting to believe what Anna had said about her being special. Maybe she could help the Leftys if she stayed. She could almost feel her physical strength returning with force as her confidence grew.
She wiped the wetness from her cheeks and turned to Anna. “I’ll stay, Anna, but you have to promise me something.”
“I don’t promise anything until I know what it is, kid.”
“Well, you see, that’s just it. What you just called me,” Jessica said as she stood, her tall frame still too thin from weeks in bed, but remarkable for her age nonetheless. “Promise me you won’t call me ‘kid’ anymore, because I’m not one. Not after everything I’ve been through.”
“Ok,” Anna said. “I think that’s one promise I can keep. How ‘bout Jessica, just like your parents named you?”
“Dad always called me Jess. Sounds stronger, don’t you think?”
Anna smiled. She stood up and pulled Jessica to her in a hard hug. “Sure does, Jess. Sounds strong as oak.”
11.
S alvador, Simone, and Quinn worked through the morning and into the afternoon, analyzing all the information they had gathered since Camp Overlord’s discovery. Quinn had the most to reveal, but it was up to all three of them to determine how they would use it.
“Do you know that we’ve kept small skeleton crews of Omega XT soldiers at the larger military bases?” Quinn asked Simone at one point. “Men who are keeping outsiders away from stored supplies and weapons?”
“Of course,” Simone said. “It was a brilliant idea, something that I would have never thought of.”
“Well, thank you,” Quinn said. “I guess that’s why Salvador keeps me around – to come up with the brilliant ideas. Anyway, I’m in charge of those soldiers and the installations that they occupy. I can’t tell you how many people we’ve had to kill in the name of self-preservation. But in the end, we couldn’t allow the outsiders access to those bases.”
“You don’t have to defend yourself, Quinn,” Salvador said. “You know that.”
“Yes, I know,” he said thoughtfully. “So as I was saying, we have men at these military installations across the country, and across the world in fact. One of those happens to be in Kansas, an army base that houses something you may be familiar with.”
“What?” Simone asked with curiosity.
“Something this country’s military had been using more than they would have ever admitted: drones.”
Simone grinned. “Jacob,” she said.
“Yes, that’s right,” Salvador said. “Jacob led us to it. Once he thought of using drones to see outside of the grids, the floodgates opened. When I told Quinn the idea, he ran with it.”
“But Jacob and I thought we were the only ones,” Simone said.
“Because I wanted you to think that,” Salvador answered. “Because Quinn may have his own thoughts on how best to use our new drones. Because sometimes, the less you know the better.”
Simone could have been offended, but she wasn’t. She knew Salvador’s intentions were not to hurt her. “So the drone program has continued?”
“Continued would be an understatement, dear,” Quinn said. “We are operating out of four different locations in America so far, piloting our drones out for hundreds of miles to gather intelligence. But the funny thing is, our base in Kansas has gathered more than the others by a long shot. And we didn’t have to fly that far to get it. We’ve found, what you might call, the motherlode.”
“What is it?” Simone asked eagerly.
“It looks to be the rebellion’s headquarters,” Salvador told her. “Just outside Kansas City. There are hundreds of rebels there, living and training.”
“And we think that’s exactly where Jacob and the others went,” Quinn added.
Simone couldn’t contain her excitement. She began to laugh.
“Settle down, Simone,” Salvador said. “We’ve got a long way to go. We’re just watching them for now.”
“I got it,” Simone said, stifling her laughter. “But I still think it’s funny.”
“What’s that?” Quinn asked.
“Jacob and the drones,” she said. “Don’t you see? His own idea is going to be his undoing.”
ΔΔΔ
Before their day-long meeting ended, Quinn asked for a quick briefing on the people who had escaped the grid with Jacob. He could see how much Simone was invested in finding them, even if it was based on something as trivial as revenge. He feigned interest in them to gain favor with her. It was a tactic he had learned at a young age, a way of securing trust and fast-tracking a friendship. His salesmanship was second-nature, and it never left him.
“So, these escape artists, the ones who fled with Jacob. Who are they?” Quinn asked.
“The soldiers were Omega XT,” Salvador said. “We’re investigating them now, trying to find out how they were connected to each other. And why they turned.”
“Look at the doctor,” Quinn said. “He had contact with at least one of them, no doubt. I think you’ll find that everything centered around him. He may have held an awful lot of answers. But, unfortunately, he’s gone.”
“For good reason,” Salvador said. Quinn nodded his understanding.
“The other two were our prisoners,” Simone said. “Rebels captured from the Overlord camp. A woman and a young girl.”
“The woman was the one you had been interrogating?” Quinn asked.
“The one Jacob had been interrogating,” Simone answered.
“But you were watching him with her, right?”
“Of course we were,” Salvador said. “Every single session.”
“We’ll need to review those interrogation tapes,” Quinn suggested. “Might be something in there that you missed.”
“Why does that matter?” Simone asked. “We know they planned it, and we know they got out. All I care about is where they are now, goddammit.”
“Ok, ok,” Quinn said. “Listen, Simone, I know what happened. I know what you’ve been through. And I’ll help you find them, if I can. But you’ve got to let go of this rage. Deal?”
“It’s the girl,” Simone said. “She tried to kill me. And she almost did. Twice.”
Salvador sat back in his chair and shrugged his shoulders when Quinn looked at him. Quinn drew a deep breath into his lungs and held it a few seconds before exhaling. “Here’s what I can offer you right now,” he finally said. “They probably went to Kansas City. It won’t be difficult to fly a drone over that base and see if we can spot them. No guarantees, but we’ll tr
y.”
“Thank you,” Simone said.
“I’m sure we’ve got some pictures on these folks?” Quinn asked. “My guys will need to know who they’re looking for.”
“Yes, of course,” Salvador said. He reached for a file that was underneath a stack of papers on the table. “Like I said, we’re still investigating the soldiers, so I don’t have photos of those men. But here are the woman and the girl.” He handed the file to Quinn.
Quinn lifted the picture of Anna first and stared at it. It was a photograph of her from her prison cell, taken after one of her many interrogations. She looked tired and dirty and angry. Quinn admired the defiance her face clearly displayed. He laid the picture down and picked up the other one, which showed a sleeping Jessica in her hospital bed. Quinn felt his heart drop into his stomach at the sight of his granddaughter. He quickly looked to Salvador.
“Where did you take this?” he asked.
“The hospital. She stayed in a coma for weeks after the battle,” Salvador said. “We had to heal her. My doctors say she was at death’s door after Simone shot her. Something wrong, Quinn?”
Quinn thought for a moment before he answered. He could feel heat in his face and sweat beading beneath his clothes. “No,” he said carefully, trying to conceal his recognition. He looked back down at the photograph of Jessica. “Nothing’s wrong. Nothing’s wrong at all.”
12.
Q uinn commissioned a surveillance drone flight over the Lefty base in Kansas City as soon as he left his meeting with Salvador and Simone. The photograph of Jessica had shaken him. He needed to know if she was there, before anyone else did. Then he could prepare for what may come next, as Simone had made her intentions for his granddaughter obvious.
His men at the former army base in Kansas set up the flight for first thing the next morning, as daylight was fast disappearing by the time Quinn reached them.
“Morning is fine,” he said. “Just make sure the video feed is coming to my laptop. And my laptop only.”
He slept fitfully that night. He had hoped that Meg and Gordon and the children would survive in the darkness. But deep down, he knew they were better off if they didn’t. He had stocked the farm just in case, and if they had gotten there, they could live for a long time. But seeing Jessica wasn’t part of any scenario that he had imagined. She was alive, but she wasn’t at the farm. Instead, she had been more than a hundred miles away from it, fighting with the rebels, captured and held by the army he had created. He couldn’t make sense of it, and he certainly couldn’t reckon how he might deal with its consequences.
As the first light of sun broke through the crack in his hotel room’s curtains, he eased out of bed, weary from a night full of futile thoughts. He brewed a pot of coffee, then opened his laptop, ready to begin the planned surveillance mission.
He clicked on an icon that looked like a camera, and a large window opened on his laptop’s screen. The resolution adjusted, and an ANTI- soldier’s face appeared. “Good morning, sir,” the soldier said.
“Good morning,” Quinn responded. “We ready?”
“Prepping her now, sir,” the soldier said, referring to the drone.
“Let’s make it quick.”
“Yes, sir,” the soldier said, turning from the camera.
Quinn got up and poured himself a cup of coffee. As he sat back down in front of his computer, the soldier said, “Ready, sir.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
The screen switched its feed from the soldier’s face to what looked like the dull gray skin of a snake’s underbelly, with scales uneven and misshapen instead of perfectly designed. Quinn knew what it was immediately, having watched dozens of drone flight videos over the past month. The camera, located underneath the plane’s fuselage, was aimed down at the runway. Once in the air, the pilot would manipulate it to capture the best angles of surveillance, but the crackled asphalt of the runway was always the image during takeoff. The scales on the snakeskin began to move, slowly at first. They slithered by on the screen faster and faster until the view changed with the drone’s rise into the air, and Quinn began to see the terrain of rural Kansas.
The camera feed displayed familiar territory as the drone flew east toward the Missouri border. The flight to Camp Forager took almost exactly one hour, and Quinn found himself lost in the passing scenery on his screen for most of that time. A few miles outside of the Lefty camp, the pilot’s voice came through his laptop’s speaker, breaking him from his thoughtless daze.
“Just a minute or so out, sir,” the pilot said.
“Very good,” Quinn said. “Bring her in low and slow. I want to see as many of their faces as we possibly can.”
The pilot knew to keep the drone at the minimum flight deck allowed for stealth, which would limit how much they could actually see. But he didn’t say anything, understanding that Quinn would know all of this already. He slowed the drone as it neared the two stadiums, then circled over them. There was activity in the former baseball stadium that had been transformed into a large campground.
“Let’s start here,” Quinn instructed, hoping that Jessica’s late arrival meant she would be staying there.
The image on Quinn’s screen began to zoom closer to the figures on the ground in the stadium. It stopped abruptly when it reached its focus limit. Then the pilot started panning at a deliberate pace. The faces through the feed were clear enough for Quinn to discern familiarity. He would recognize Jessica without doubt, along with Jacob and the woman named Anna. Everyone else in the camp was irrelevant to him that morning.
The work was tedious. It took Quinn more than an hour to survey everyone in the campground to his satisfaction. He saw no sign of Jessica or her new friends.
“Move to the training facility,” he said. He and his men had been watching the camp for over three weeks. They knew the layout of Forager well, along with the design of its repurposed stadiums. The pilot understood where to go without further instruction.
The former football stadium was calm compared to the campground. It was still early, and training had not yet commenced. The camera moved quickly around the seats and transformed field.
“Well that didn’t take long,” the pilot said through Quinn’s speaker. “Nothing here, sir. Should we move to the housing area?”
“Wait,” Quinn said. “Not just yet.” He had seen something, just barely. They had almost blended in with the seats around them. “Move your camera back to the northwest corner. In the seats. There’s someone there.”
His screen adjusted as the camera shifted to the position he had described. When the pilot saw what Quinn had seen, the camera’s movement froze. It zoomed in on two women sitting near the field.
“Good eyes, sir,” the pilot said.
Quinn remained silent as the recognition assaulted him. It was Jessica on his screen, with the woman named Anna. The two of them embraced in a deep hug.
“Sir?” the pilot said. “Have you seen enough? Should we move on?”
“Yes, soldier,” Quinn finally answered. “Time to move on.”
13.
T he first two weeks of Jacob’s existence at Camp Forager were lonely. He tried to keep up with Archer and Laz, but there was no stigma attached to their past like there was to his. They had been Omega XT soldiers, some of the worst military men in world history, and yet they were able to fall into place at Forager without much consternation from their former foes. In fact, they had been tasked to help organize and lead the Lefty training, their military experience considered invaluable. Jacob, on the other hand, was well-known to the Leftys, his history as an ANT defined and clear. Lefty recruits had memorized his name and biography in preparation for their war. To them, he was the face of ANTI‑, a focus for their rage in person.
Daniel had been conditioned to hate Jacob like the rest, and he refused to let him into the Lefty fold, no matter how hard Jacob persisted. If he saw Jacob lingering around an area too long, he would have him escorted away. If he thou
ght Jacob might be in a position to overhear something important, he would force him to leave. Daniel made no effort to hide his disdain for Jacob, and he truly wished the turncoat ANT would vanish from Forager forever.
So Jacob spent his first days there wandering the camp’s premises and watching the Leftys train from afar, but always with the paranoia that he was being watched and judged. Anna would try and interact with him at times, but even she held some small bit of contempt for him. It had been impossible for her to forget the interrogations and waterboarding. And though he was the only reason she was free, she harbored a resentment for him and what he had helped ANTI- do that she couldn’t erase.
He began to think it might be better for himself and the Leftys if he disappeared. There was no place for him in their Effort if they couldn’t forgive him. And he could sense the fear that he put into their hearts whenever he was around them. He thought he might leave the camp quietly and live on his own. Most of the Great Dark’s violence and death was done, he assumed. Maybe he could find a quiet cabin abandoned deep in a woods somewhere and just be.
After fifteen days at Camp Forager, his idea of solitude seemed tempting enough to try. So he packed his bag in the last pre-dawn hour of the next morning and eased out of his room silently. He took the stairs down through the former hotel, avoiding the noise an elevator would make. He came out into the lobby, still early enough that it was empty and calm in anticipation of the Effort’s activity that would commence once daylight came. He walked out the front door and turned around to look at the building.
“Good luck, guys,” he muttered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” a voice said from the steps below him.
It startled him, and he turned quickly to see who was out there in the dark with him at such an odd time. He could barely discern the face and figure of the young girl he had helped rescue just sixteen days earlier.
“You going somewhere?” Jessica asked him.
